Adventure Roulette - a collectively written story

Jan 30/31, 2016

Destination: Warden’s Cabin, Three Mile Lake

Winter Camping Party: Tristan, Avalon, Sara, Erica, Morgan, Angharad
Trip details left behind in the Cabin Log Book. 

The storm from the night before had just settled and we decided to make way for the cabin deep in the woods. We decided to play adventure roulette, completely unsure whether the lakes would be frozen or not. [dangerous music plays ominously]

The first emergency put upon us required us to put the Aussie’s feet in plastic bags after he stepped in water testing the integrity of the edge of the lake, (it would be the first of many wet feet).  It was a unanimous vote that would ultimately save the integrity group for the duration of the trip. The Lady wolf pack was determined the Aussie’s toes would not freeze on his first Canadian winter adventure.

The first leg of the trip was too bushwhack from Aerotech to the first lake, battling through brush with skis and tangling ourselves in the low hanging branches holding us back.  Having made it to the lake, we made the risky decision to transverse the lake on the half-slush half-ice rather than hacking through the dense undergrowth following the edge of the lake to stay on safe and solid ground. We took the risk. Here the skis help distribute our weight, but those on pokey feet had to keep moving constantly so that they didn’t slowly sink through the soft slush; all that was keeping them from the icy depths below.

We finally made it to the end of the first lake to begin our fruitless search for the portage trail. Determining that it was an unmarked trail we abandoned our skis and followed a compass bearing through the brush towards the next Lake.

After surviving the first crossing our confidence grew too much and we set forth on the lake #2, ignoring the soft ice slush cover once again. Thirty steps in and unaware of our very dense traveling pack the unimaginable happened, even though we spent the first leg of our trip imagining this very scenario. A foot in the orange jumpsuit went through the ice up to the knee. The howls and panic that were released shook the forest. We froze figuratively, and anticipated the physical freeze doomed for our friend's toes, [ominous danger music volume increases]. 

Surprisingly the magic orange jumpsuit was a good water shield and the foot did not freeze - no garbage bag first-aid vote was needed and the integrity of the frozen lake held.  The pack decided to push forward doubling our roulette adventure on the stupidity of crossing the slushy pit of death/danger, AKA the technically unfrozen lake.

Safely reaching the other side with only one wet shin, we made it to the second portage trail. Thankfully this time the clearing was marked. Trudging through this trail was a slush hopscotch competition, which resorted to a full speed harsh-bardge tactic and we made like the gods and floated across the marsh with will and speed (while screaming like barbarians).

Making it to lake #3 we checked the map and voted if we should make a deviation in our route plan (headed by Tristan). Mid-lake, now crossing with a tentative confidence, we veered left and bushwhacked uphill.  This effort outweighed possible death as we eyed open water at the end of the lake.

After clawing our way through the near vertical wilderness, we spotted the pond far below us. We made a descent like giant awkward winter otters, skirted around it to the left, and to our dismay found ourselves faced with another snowy ascent.  As the dusk began to close in on us, we half crawled half-staggered up the ridge over boulders and bent branches.  Again we crested and slid down the snow covered nature slide on our bums, channeling our inner winter otter once again.  Then to our delight, up ahead Tristan let out a triumphant yell.  We found the cabin and would not be sleeping in the snow!

     

 

Thank you so much nature loving community for maintaining this beautiful little cabin, we are thrilled for the shelter and adventurous trek. However, we honestly do not know how one would get through those portage trails with a canoe overhead;  perhaps summer travel is much more easier.

 

 

  

Facing Courage like a Goat

I wish I was a goat 

text from 'the moment before the moment your heart stops'

 

We’ve just climbed above the treeline.
There are mountains all around, an expansive vista.

I am confounded by the amount of unknowns held within this landscape.

I see your face staring back at me. I see you seeing me.

I just want to curl into a ball and melt into the snow… (with you).

This is going to take awhile,
I am stuck on whimper ridge.

****

I see your face staring back at me.
I see my reflection in the wet glass of your cornea.

They say falling in love takes 4 minuets of stillness.

I go to take another step and my foot starts to slide backwards.

I can’t breathe or I am breathing to quickly.
I know this fear is not rational; there is no chance I’d actually fall the whole way down the mountain.
Starting over isn’t an option.

****

18, 921, 600 minutes have passed, as I stand on the edge.
I have only felt that glorious 4 minuets once.
I wonder if I will ever get off this mountain.

I see you see me,
I stare back at you.
My eyes are full of the sun as I stand exposed above the treeline. My foot slips, my heart stops.

****

I am stuck here on whimper ridge.
I feel the porousness of my capillaries, the blood slips through picking up the oxygen as the heart prepares for the next moment. A supportive reflex in these cliffs and valleys.

I wish I was a goat.

So that way, when I feel pinned up against a cliff, it would be in my genetic make-up not to be afraid to make that leap.

I could release my foothold and let the unknown catch me.
Slowly narrowing the gap that’s just beyond my reach.

I’ve just climbed above the tree line, there are mountains all around – an expansive vista of unknowns.

I wish I was a goat.

 

Performed at the Osprey Arts Centre (Shelburne, November 2014) and Kinetic Studio (Halifax, February 2015. )  Originally created at Smith College, Fall 2013. Photos by Lisa Bauchanan and Petra O'Toole.

Winning over the tough crowd

I invited a tough crowd into the studio today to witness the creative process of making a dance piece. 

Students from Dartmouth High School's (DHS) Dance 11 program got to take a field trip across the bridge and join Gillan, Brian and I in the studio today to witness us work and watch a run of the piece.

Throughout this fall, I have been working with the DHS Dance 11 students teaching movement and composition classes at their school, and I also had the pleasure of sharing some partnering skills to the school's improv team. Getting to know the group over time has been rewarding and it has been lovely to witness the group try new things and begin to believe in their creative potential.

Today the tables turned, and I put myself (and my collaborator Gillian Seaward-Boone) to the test by trying a completely new section, "testing the waters so to speak" in front of a room full of (sometimes unenthusiastic) viewing eyes. Gillian and I had the job of remaining present to the work and trying completely new things, while trying not to get distracted by the set of twenty eyes on us. We juggled the  job of remaining welcoming so that we could share our strange and wonderful world called "the unknowns in creative process" yet remain efficient and plough through our day's to do list despite the full house. 

After witnessing us work for an hour, we did a run of the piece for the students. Although there are still a lot of gaps in the work and many details to work out, the skeleton of the piece is getting stronger with each run. 

Below is the commentary and thoughts from my toughest critics yet:
  

Dartmouth High  Studio Visit Day with Mocean Dance

What skill sets / personality qualities, and communication tools do you see at work in the studio?

• Lots of enthusiasm, you could tell the dancers love what they do.
• It wasn’t as serious as I thought it would be, but more fun and energetic. They laughed but were very professional.
• A lot of communication and they are very creative.
• They worked together as a team and while they were brainstorming one is listening to someone who’s talking. Each gave their ideas and did their part.
• A lot of effort.
• Agreeing upon things. Open to new things, learn to do things you don’t like a whole lot.
• You guys like figuring things out together, instead of one person figuring it out and teaching the other person.
• Laptops, mirrors, microphones and a lot of physics.
• The fact that they are positive and straightforward to the point and they’re very focused.

What images, themes, and associations do you see in the piece or does it remind you of?

• Makes me think of  a battle within their own head that is being played out so that an audience can see what one deals with in their minds. Trying to trust one another.
• I see someone wanting to love someone but the other person does not want to love them.
• I see a lot of mirror and push.
• Helping someone when they need it.
• People telling you what to do and it getting stuck in your head.
• Human growth, inner voice, survival, growing up, circle of life, sadness, inner demons, restarting.
• It reminds me of sadness, nature, your inner self.
• This piece reminds me of the struggles in life with all the people in the world that try to bring you down.

What section is the most interesting to you and why?

• While one was talking and the other was continually doing the routine.
• The whole thing is very interesting.
• The final part was very intense.
• When you guys said “this section is going to hurt.”
• All of it.
• When the girl was climbing on the other person’s back, cause it was not normal but interesting. 

This education mentorship partnership with Dartmouth High is supported by the generous funding received from:

Cultivating Compassion and Community at the Library

Mocean Dance has recently initiated a partnership with the Halifax Central Library to offer free movement classes for adults in the Paul O’Regan Performance Hall.

Click to see large photo

Moving with Mocean is an open inclusive class designed to support all levels of movement comfort and ability. The class offers the chance for adults to engage creatively and actively in the beautiful setting of our new library; a space where the light cascading through the large windows will lift your spirits and the open skeleton of the room encourages deeper breathing. So far, we have offered the class three times this season, September 25, November 25 and December 2, and we are thrilled to see the benefits of supporting such an opportunity for mindful community connections, while engaging in an active and creative form that is both safe and extremely playful.

When teaching the class the feedback of smiles that I receive is infectious and I can’t help but smile back and send my heart-centre to the whole room. I know that such an act is my job as the facilitator for this class, but the interweaving of our group energy supported by the live music provided by local musician Andrew Dahms certainly makes it easy for me. I can’t tell who enjoys the class more the participants or me!

Reflecting on what is happening at a deeper and physiological level and why such exchange of energy through movement as a community is so important I share my layman’s version of the Polyvagal theory.

In moving, breath can access and regulate the vagus nerve, a nerve that runs along the face-heart connection on the side of the neck. This is why in so many mindful practices slow deep breathing is encouraged; as naturally we calm down and our stress reflexes begin to turn off. Through breath and the mirror neurons of sharing an energetic (and playful) experience together will activate the vagas nerve in such a way that helps us respond to other people with empathetic compassion and impacts our viscera at the neuroceptive level. Creating a supportive viscera homeostasis essentially means we are using a physiological (physical) state in which we can use another person in a dyadic interactive situation to help regulate your emotional state.

By down regulating the nervous system, or calming the nervous system in a pleasing physiological method our body can find a safe state of being that leads to more empathetic socially engaging responses, creativity, and the desire for developing bold and new ideas…. Like acknowledging skipping in public as an adult leads to at the very least positivity but potentially can later shape bold new ideas post public skipping!

The science in the simplistic act of breath, creativity, community, and physical interaction is profound and very rewarding beyond the few calories that we also burn!

 

Keep an eye out for more classes to come so you can share in the science of compassion and reap the benefits as well. Class info is posted on our face book page and on our website.

Freedom in Constraints

Eunoia is a masterful layering of interconnected and uniquely individual elements. The intertwining of text, movement, video, and sound create a surreal absurdist playground full of lightness and delight. The dance of the layered production elements is almost as complicated and simple as the movement choreography in itself. 

Photo courtesy of Live Art Dance Productions

Fujiwara takes her inspiration and challenge of working within constraints from Christian Bök’s book Eunoia. Published in 2001, Bök’s book of poetry is written as a univocal lipogram, where each of the five chapters isolates a vowel and in doing so exhibits the vowel’s distinct personality. 

The word Eunoia is the shortest word in English to contain all five vowels ¬– meaning ‘beautiful thinking.’ Viewing Live Art Dance’s presentation of Eunoia on Thursday evening, I was struck by the craft and masterful thinking of Fujiwara and her collaborative team. Rendering the stage version of Eunoia as a beautiful embodiment of beautiful thinking. 

Entering the theatre we are welcomed by the performers and are invited to join in on a game of Hangman. Lightness and humour is introduced and the permission for active engagement is set. The stage is littered with various childhood games such as playing cards, Jacks, and pick up sticks; perhaps positioned as a foreshadow to the audience preparing us for the linguistic guess gaming we were about to experience. 

In her program notes, and during a pre-show chat that I was lucky enough to sit in on, Fujiwara explains her movement invention is restricted to univocal body parts corresponding to each chapter. For example in chapter A, the palm, the back, the jaw, etc. initiate movement. The composer, Phil Strong was also restricted to composing with univocal instruments; where in Chapter O we heard the sounds of spoons, Bongo, pots.

The seemingly nonsensical or unrelated but layered production elements of text, video projection, colourful costume changes, and task directed choreography, unfold into an engaging surrealist play and bricolage of events. However, equally as fun as guessing what each element was restricted by, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the piece expand and contract – breathing within its own beautiful thinking. Where moments of chaos are swept away by moments of calming space or a visual display of snowing letters. I shared in the game of categorizing and labelling the code of conduct but I never tired in the cognitive task of guessing the rules. I am enchanted by the unique pairings and immediately set at ease within the mystery of Furjiwara’s craftsmanship. 

In Chapter O the poetic resonances of all the combined elements came together for me in a touching moment when one performer reciting text based on gluttonous food, is engulfed by four performers mouthing (initiated by the pons – a part of the brainstem associated with facial movement) to the sounds of pots. The mouthing, the bodies sinking, the sounds of pots clanging, and hearing text of over abundance and disproportion move me. Throughout Eunoia the performers operate within the constraints of the work with a generous presence and they utilize the need to stick with a task to their full advantage keeping me engaged and with them in every moment. 

I caught 52 items of constraint, yet experienced 70 minutes of theatrical freedom. 

An example of Christian Bök’s Eunoia can be read through this online link, but you can only experience the mastery and delight of Denise Fujiwara’s Eunoia live thanks to our local dance presenter Live Art Dance Production. 

http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/eunoia/index.html 

If you are curious, here is my list: 
Jazz, Palm, Back, Rap, Harp, Jaw, fatal, Dress, Wrestle, Referee, Heel, Knee, Bells, Temple, Whistling, Sing, String, Signing, Fish, Wig, Iris, Hip, Kiss, Shoot, photo, Fog Horn, Golf, Broom, Yoyo, Popcorn, Boots, Loop, Homologous, Mouthing (pons), Spoons, Bongo, Blow, Pots, Roll, Rock, Slow, Stop, Snow, Snowing Letters, Club, Cup, Upside down, Push-ups, Surf.

my most awake self

The practice of dealing with the unknown is deliciously delightful; especially in the case when the unknown is simply feeling the direction of down, knowing how far from the ground you are, and trusting you can survive the fall. 

I feel the most awake and present listening to the now in the dance of CI.  

In tonight's class I felt the power of the super moon, everything fell into place, a perfect flow of research, questions and play. I am savoring this moment, as there is no way this class and the flow of the evening will ever be reproducible. I am grateful for the dance, this dance, the dance that continues.

Acknowledging the curve of the lumbar, the thoracic, and the cervical spine. We play with this ribbonous landscape, the rise and fall and slippery nature of the spine. We explored the fold of the legs into the curve of the lumbar spine and the fold of the arms into the thoracic spine.

We practice not erasing ourselves, we blank out in the gap of flipping upside down and falling into the backspace. We do it again, this time time staying aware and following the moment. I see learning taking place. The practice of knowing (or not knowing) the moment and being brave enough to deal with the parameters we find ourselves within.

Meet, redirect, go through, retreat. Our vectors of truth and playful possibility.

I meet the room, I quickly prepare for an evening of trios - organizing my list of scores. One more arrives... my second moment of resiliency and draw on my resourcefulness again.  My dexterity is heightened.

I improvise, as one does in this form. I let my cells speak, I follow the dance of taking my cellular and perceptual knowledge and transfer it into words, so that it can be re-adapted for your dance. Food for thought to nourish the possibilities.  How do you pick up and follow momentum, how do you augment or extend the trajectory, how do you direct the felt flow without taking over, is going through simply shortening the time to the plum line? The students become my teacher as I transfer what I know, rich questions, I feed off the delight in the depth of our research,  you push me to give you more.  I do a silent happy dance with everyone in the room.

I feel the floor through the structural integrity of someone else's bones. Your legs become my legs.
This is why I dance.

The individual body (a day of personal reflection)

My Physical body is: Fluid Mass Elastic Here

My Emotional body is: Untitled Lost Potential

My Mental body is: Attention/Intention

expressions from the heart

******

Walking the edge of potential, but never breaking through
When really all I ever wanted was to snuggle and laugh with you.

Eyes of desire, a sweet kiss, and a soft touch,
I long to hear someone whisper to my cells
to tell me its already alright.

My cells porous and full of potential to love
Longing to yield to the warmth of a soft touch
Ready to fall into the sweet seduction of desirability

I want to lay next to the cells that make up your entity
Feel your breath and learn your knowledge through osmosis
I long to sit and drink coffee in the morning sun with you,
Or talk all night philosophizing about life past the stars and our small but perfect being of two.

a birth day reflection

On the eve of turning a new page...
I imagined running bare feet in a field, tending chickens, drinking home brew and laughing with you.

Instead I am blazing a trail to nowhere.
Hoping the next bend will bring Joy and a smile that will melt my bones.

I have chased the dream around the world and back,
To sit alone in my room with my cats.
Weighted by debt and a heavy heart,
Wondering if this is just another false start.

Life Lessons from Petey B

"give your attention to the preparation not the execution"

"why rush through the problem 

and bypass the opportunity to learn"

Peter Bingham, Contact Improvisation Class at EDAM, July 2015